House Majority Leader Eric Cantor. Photo: wiki commons.

Following an interview President Obama gave to CBS’ 60 Minutes program, which aired last night, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor released a statement through the Romney campaign, saying that Obama has “downgraded” the alliance between Israel and the United States.

“We have on the one side Mitt Romney, a man who recognizes the importance of our alliance with Israel and the danger a nuclear Iran poses,” Cantor said in a statement e-mailed to reporters.  “And then we have President Obama, who in a recent interview with 60 Minutes downplayed the Jewish state’s concern over Iran’s march to a nuclear weapon as ‘noise.’ Obama’s own State Department recognizes Iran as the world’s ‘most active state sponsor of terrorism’, and it is clear that Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons poses a significant threat not just to Israel but to the United States.”

The statement from Cantor, who is the highest ranking American-Jewish member of Congress in U.S. history, comes one day after both Mitt Romney and President Obama appeared on 60 Minutes to further explain their ideas on taxation, foreign policy, and federal spending, ahead of the first presidential debate on October 3rd.